Happy Holidays from Santa Simulator and nine point eight one Studios
Santa Simulator is taking a year off. Research is in-process for a better development platform. Download a demo of what we have in store…(Testing was very limited and this demo requires a newer computer. Your mileage may vary and I apologize for any technical issues.)
Well, My mini shell finally arrived. I had to thicken the inside for added strength. Here you can see I’ve got it masked and am adding layers of paint for final shaping. This has become quite the mini project in itself. At least this feels like I’m still building. 
It’s gonna look great on top of my mini motion platform.
Mini Learjet 45 Shell for Mini Motion Platform
The blog may look a little strange for the next few weeks. I’m working on some custom updates. Content availability should not be affected.
Shapeways is backed up with orders. I had expected to have my mini Learjet shell by now. I won’t have any pictures until it arrives and I can complete the test platform.
Hi all! I apologize. It has been too long. Life has been pretty busy lately and I’m on the cusp of an exciting new adventure.
That said, progress is still being made on the miniature 3D model of the Learjet 45 for the test motion platform. I’ll be splitting off the motion control software to a separate site on nine point eight one, but I’ll also link to it from here, so you won’t miss a thing. Progress on the full-size shell has stopped for now, but once the weather cools off, I’ll be back at it.
Miniature Learjet 45 3D Model for 3D Printing
I’m working on a 3D model of the Learjet 45 that I will eventually be 3D printing for my miniature motion base test setup. My last serious run at modeling was back n the mid ’90s, so I’m kind of rusty. I apparently forgot that Boolean Operations can wreak havoc on meshes, so my idea of cutting the windows out of this thing with Booleans, is a wash. I’ll need to take a few steps back to see if there’s another way without starting over. Good thing I saved all those iterative versions.
Learjet 45 3D Model
Found some micro servos that can be used for the yaw coordinator. The technical drawing is full scale. I’m still not sure how I want to build it yet, but I have a few ideas floating around in my head. The experiments continue…
Micro Servo and Yaw Coordinator Technical Drawing
I’ve got my software working reasonably well, so I decided to build a quick and dirty mock up of a yaw coordinator and test it out. The ball shakes a little too much, because the connection wire to the servo is a little too thin. The final design will be more complex, due to the slight curve of the glass tube the ball sits in, but this gives me something to play around with while I’m finishing up the software interface. Sorry for the low-quality video.
I need to get back to finishing the shell exterior. One of these days I’ll get back to it.
I finally jumped-in and purchased a ServoCenter servo controller card. It can handle 16 servos and has a myriad of other analog and digital input/output options. Additionally, it does smoothing and has some other neat features that will prove useful for motion control. The API is fairly straightforward and I managed to get a hobby servo connected and linked it to the yaw coordinator data coming from FSX/SimConnect pretty easily. Now it’s time to build out a easy-to-use front end to set up and save the servo settings.
Ideally, I’d like to include other interface card options (like Phidgets) as well, but that will be in later versions.
Early Version of Servo Settings Panel
I converted the Z acceleration data into a tilt angle that can be used for simulation. The max angle I’m using is 45 degrees, which is too much to be practical, given that the linear actuators aren’t that quick. It makes for a good test though. I’ve also converted the yaw coordination ball into data that a servo can deal with. I’m working on a home-made yaw coordination ball instrument for the Learjet 45. Next up, as I said before is to get a servo controller card and hook it into the software.
An image of the Turn Coordinator on the Learjet 45 is shown below. The video illustrates what happens to the sim base when taking off. The angle increases as the acceleration rate increases.
Learjet 45 Turn Coordinator (white ball) shown above the Flight Display
